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Immigration has become one of the most contentious issues in Europe. Following the war in Syria, an unprecedented number of people have crossed the external borders of the European Union (EU) to claim asylum in one of the member states. Sweden is one of the member states that has received the highest number of refugees per capita, and in 2014 and 2015 Sweden received the highest number of refugees since the Balkan wars. This thesis seeks to argue that there has been a securitization of asylum seekers and refugees, particularly those of Muslim origins, in Sweden the result of which has been that refugees and asylum seekers are increasingly viewed and described in terms of security rather than in humanitarian terms in public discourse. The securitised discourse presents Sweden as being at risk of a system failure and collapse due to the high number of refugees and asylum seekers and the pressure they put on the Swedish society and welfare system. While characterizing forced migration as a security issue and a potential threat have negative implications for asylum seekers and refugees, as this thesis aims to show there is also a hidden risk of this securitization of refugees and asylum in its impact on the resident population. Lack of security, actual or perceived, can for example lead to anxiety and fear, and to the feeling of being under threat. In relation to the arrival of asylum seekers and refugees, this fear could potentially contribute to a rise in xenophobia, nationalistic tendencies and policies, and perhaps even racism. As such, fear is a risk that must be taken into account.

Informed by particular theories of migration and of new global migrations as problematic European states, pulled by both exclusionary particularist and inclusionary universalist tensions, have taken increasing measures to restrict access to ‘unwanted’ forced migrants to their territories and welfare states. To these ends governments have devised welfare policies for forced migrants which are simultaneously mechanisms of deterrence and internal immigration control, in tension with their obligations to protect refugees. These are systems of ‘Welfare as Control’. 1990s UK legislation has increasingly eroded and separated asylum seekers’ social rights, culminating in the “qualitative leap” (Cohen, 2001) of the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act (IAA), which introduced a separate and inferior welfare ‘safety net’ for asylum seekers, explicitly designed to control their migration externally and internally. These legislations have implicated welfare and social care workers in implementing welfare fraught with tensions of control. In their 1999 IAA New Labour extended this to utilise voluntary sector agencies to implement key sections of the deterrent ‘safety net.’ An intensive ethnographic case study grounded in critical realism was undertaken with a voluntary sector organisation in this contradictory positioning of delivering Welfare as Control, as a Reception Assistant for the Home Office’s National Asylum Support Service (NASS). Using observation and gathering insider accounts and documents over eight months in 2002-2003, the ethnography explored the lived experiences, practices and understandings of service providers and people seeking asylum, in this everyday world at Refugee Arrivals Project. The setting resonated with tensions, dilemmas and compromises. RAP’s autonomy was constrained by NASS’ chaos, bureaucratic dominance and imperative to restrict and control access to welfare, compromising the organisation’s ability to address clients’ often ‘complex and multiple’ needs. Asylum seekers experienced “anormalised” (Geddes, 2001) lives, loss of autonomy and dignity in Reception, feeling they were “hanging” out of control in multiple uncertainties, with those the safety net was designed to protect, often least protected. Although RAP used their discretion and ethical urges to increase the “informal gain” and fill the gaps of social rights in practice, (Morris, 2002), their integrity was threatened. This research contributes to a new ‘Sociology of Forced Migration’ (Castles, 2003) and has implications for all voluntary and public sector agencies and workers embroiled in delivering ‘Third Way’ policy generally, but specifically Welfare as Control.

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

This thesis asks why the Australian Labor Party was opposed to the policy of offshore detention for unauthorized maritime arrivals from 2002 to 2008, when they ended it, only to bring it back a few years later in 2011? The Australian Labor Party, the major left-wing party in Australia, campaigned against offshore detention as being antithetical to Australia's liberal values, which proclaimed human rights as an Australian value. After winning the 2007 federal election the policy of offshore detention was ended. By 2009, the Australian Labor Party changed its position on the issue going into the 2010 federal election. In 2011, the Australian Labor Party announced that it was looking to bring back offshore detention. The explanation for this change I find is that the Australian Labor Party wanted to hold political power. As the minority party the Australian Labor Party used the policy of offshore detention for unauthorized maritime arrivals to attack the Liberal-National Coalition-controlled government as being a financial waste and cruelly inhumane. After ending the policy, the rates of unauthorized maritime arrivals increased drastically, creating pressure on the Australian Labor Party to find a solution or risk losing control of the Australian government, which it did in 2011. / Master of Arts / This thesis asks why the Australian Labor Party was opposed to the policy of offshore detention for unauthorized maritime arrivals from 2002 to 2008, when they ended it, only to bring it back a few years later in 2011? The explanation for this change I find is that the Australian Labor Party wanted to hold political power. As the minority party the Australian Labor Party used the policy of offshore detention for unauthorized maritime arrivals to attack the Liberal-National Coalition-controlled government as being a financial waste and cruelly inhumane. After ending the policy, the rates of unauthorized maritime arrivals increased drastically, creating pressure on the Australian Labor Party to find a solution or risk losing control of the Australian government, which it did in 2011.

Yes

This thesis examines two proposals, Särskilda åtgärder vid allvarlig fara för den allmänna ordningen och inre säkerheten i landet (2015/16:67) och Tillfälliga begränsningar av möjligheten att få uppehållstillstånd (2015/16:174), in light of the concept of securitization, and analyze the effects the resulting provisions to the law and the government bill may have on displaced people. The theoretical framework used for analysis is primarily the theory of securitization in international relations and secondarily the perspective of human security. The analysis of the proposals shows that the Swedish Government considers the inflow of a high amount of asylum seekers as a threat to national security, and the special measures are in need to ensure public order and national internal security. This points to the fact that asylum seekers it to be considered as securitized. Additionally the proposals confirms that asylum seekers is to be seen as a security issue threatening specific societal structures. Hence the need of id-checks. The proposed legislation concerning limiting residence permits is viewed, both from a majority of the national consultative bodies and the Government itself, as affecting asylum seekers in various negative ways. The conclusion of the analysis is that the combination of legislating identity checks and proposing legislation to limit residence permits indicates a more significant shift in Sweden's migration policy than has been evident in the public sphere. Policies has gradually changed from defending rights and guarding safety for fleeing human beings to primarily focus on protecting the nation and guarding the citizens. Furthermore, this study accentuates a previously obscure phenomenon in Swedish migration policy. A Swedish government has proposed legislation based on protecting the Swedish society from severe threats from people in need of security and protection, which the Swedish parliament has passed as a law.

Although the United Kingdom is committed to the protection of refugees and the integration of migrants into society, many aspects of the asylum system actually prevent access to refuge or create barriers to integration. Extant research on this topic has often paid little attention to the role of discourse in legitimising particular asylum policies and notions of integration or has otherwise neglected the social functions of asylum seeker and refugee discourse. This thesis addressed these gaps by exploring the discourse of majority group members and asylum seekers / refugees, paying attention to the relationship between place and identity and the ways that notions of intercultural contact were constructed. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with seventeen people who work to support asylum seekers and refugees, fifteen asylum seekers / refugees and thirteen Scottish locals who reside in the areas where asylum seekers are housed. The data were analysed using discourse analysis, focusing on the ways that particular narratives and descriptions function to justify or criticise certain policies or sets of social relations. The analysis illustrated that the presence of asylum seekers could be justified through portraying their countries of origin as dangerous and the host society as problem-free, whereas the presence of asylum seekers was resisted through portraying the host society as ‘full’. When discussing antagonism towards asylum seekers, interviewees constructed this as stemming from ‘ignorance’, which functioned to portray the behaviour as unwarranted while emphasising the potential for positive social change. Similarly, asylum seekers’ and refugees’ accounts of violence tended to deny or downplay racial motivation, or produce accusations of racism in a tentative or reluctant manner, implying that a ‘taboo’ on racial accusations exists even in cases of violence. The analysis also illustrated how constructions of ‘integration’ perform social actions, such as highlighting the responsibility of asylum seekers or the host society. The analysis showed how the refugee status determination process could be criticised through references to a ‘culture of disbelief’, claims that it was racist or portrayals of cultural differences that undermine the process. The right of asylum seekers to work was advocated through portraying it as consistent with the national interest. Aspects of the asylum system related to destitution, detention and deportation were criticised through portraying them as ‘tools’ that treated asylum seekers inhumanely and by constructing asylum seekers in humane ways such as ‘families’ or as ‘human’. Overall the results illustrated that, in the context of asylum seekers, notions of identity and place are linked so that constructions of place constitute identity, in the sense of portraying people as legitimately in need of refuge, and these constructions can work to justify or criticise asylum policies. Results also illustrated that victims of seemingly racist violence may construct their accounts in ways that deny or downplay racial motivations, making racist behaviour difficult to identify and challenge. The analyses suggested that ‘two-way’ constructions of integration may function to overcome the view that asylum seekers have ‘special privileges’ over other members of the community and emphasise the responsibilities of the host society. Portraying punitive asylum policies as ‘inhumane’, and constructing asylum seekers in humane ways, provides a potential strategy for reforming aspects of the asylum system.

The interrelation between gender and the asylum-seeking process has received increasing attention within academic as well as political discussions in the past decade. Looking specifically at the case of Sweden, this paper hopes to add to existing knowledge through the consideration of how tensions and contradictions regarding migrants and asylum-seekers affect women’s experiences of the asylum-seeking process. The analysis builds on the idea that the European Union Member States, Sweden included, have cultivated a “securitized” migration discourse which considers refugees and asylum-seekers as a threat to national security and stability. This has resulted in reinvigorated internal and external controls on migration and asylum, with particular structural and gendered implications for those seeking asylum in the EU. The aim of the study is to explore how these implications affect women’s experiences of seeking asylum in Sweden. It finds that women, and especially women belonging to ethic minority groups in their home-countries, are particularly vulnerable to the effects of securitization due to lack of social and economic resources, increased exposure to gender based violence (GBV) during the migratory journey, insecurities related to male-dominated and overcrowded asylum accommodation centers, and insecurities related to family fragmentation.